The Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA) organised a Monday Morning Meeting on 03 August 2026, featuring a presentation by Gp. Capt. Sukhbir Kaur Minhas, Research Fellow, MP-IDSA on “Cooperative Ballistic Missile Defence: Evolution and Imperatives in the European Context”. The Session was moderated by Gp. Capt. (Dr.) R.K. Narang (Retd.), Senior Fellow, MP-IDSA. Ambassador Sujan R. Chinoy, Director-General, MP-IDSA and scholars of the Institute attended the meeting.

Executive Summary

The Speaker discussed collaborative ballistic missile defence (BMD) within the context of the recently-announced Integrated Anti-Ballistic Missile Coalition declared by nine European partners and Ukraine on 13 July 2026. The discussion traced the historical evolution of BMD systems and concepts, highlighting how European thinking on ABMs was shaped by the German V-1 and V-2 rocket campaigns of the closing years of the Second World War, and by subsequent Cold War doctrinal divergence between the United States and Western Europe.

Detailed Report

The Speaker argued that the NATO framework remains the only genuinely collaborative air defence (AD)/BMD arrangement in existence today, distinguished by its shared command and control (C2), unlike bilateral arrangements such as the US-Japan or US-Israel cooperation efforts, which retain sovereign C2. The discussion further explored modern imperatives in light of renewed threats and European efforts for sovereign interceptors and systems, including the shift towards deterrence by denial, the integration of new systems such as Freyja, and the recurring doctrinal fork between British and French approaches to European missile defence. It was highlighted that Ukraine is a prominent member of the ten-nation coalition that declared an Integrated Anti-Ballistic Missile (IABM) Coalition on 13 July 2026.

The Speaker noted that European approaches to BMD have diverged along broadly two lines – nations such as Britain and Germany prioritising rapid capability through existing (largely non-European) systems, and France favouring sovereign, indigenous capacity – with systems like Freyja designed to help bridge that gap.

According to the Speaker, the Russia-Ukraine conflict since 2022, along with demonstrated Iranian capabilities, has sharpened discourse on continental European AD, prompting several national and multinational initiatives. This includes the German-led European Sky Shield Initiative (ESSI), launched in October 2022 as a framework for the procurement and early operationalisation of dedicated ground-based AD systems, and now comprising around 24 states. Four years later, the IABM Coalition was declared. The Speaker emphasised that the distinguishing feature of the NATO framework’s joint AD/BMD architecture is shared C2 while the US-Japan or US-Israel ones retain independent responsibility of C2 by each partner.

Gp. Capt. Minhas explained that the July 2026 Coalition was necessary primarily to address the gap in indigenous European endo- and exo-atmospheric interceptor capability and to develop and mature systems such as Ukraine’s Freyja against a live battlefield backdrop. A persistent shortage of interceptor stocks – the Raytheon SM-3 (Standard Missile-3), the Lockheed Martin PAC-3 (Patriot Advanced Capability-3) and the Israel-US, Israel Aerospace Industries Arrow 3 – accentuated by the US-Iran War was cited as a further driver alongside industrial cooperation involving Thales, Safran, MBDA, Airbus Defence & Space and MBDA Deutschland. The Freyja system, developed by the Ukrainian firm Fire Point and supported by German radars and Norwegian command-and-control systems with Link 16 integration, is built on an open architecture in which source code and key technical solutions are held collectively by coalition states. Its FP-7x interceptor costs approximately US$700,000 per unit against the far more expensive Patriot interceptors.

The Speaker described the July declaration as a framework – common requirements, working groups and a roadmap but no binding capability commitment – with a Letter of Intent (LoI) for an exo-atmospheric interceptor signed between major European manufacturers the following day, on 14 July 2026. She noted the Ankara Summit earlier in the year and the NATO posture review announced on 28 July 2026 as relevant markers to watch, alongside roughly €50 million already committed by the EU towards collective defence, including Integrated Anti-Ballistic Missile Defence (IAMD) systems.

In her concluding remarks, the Speaker characterised the 80-year doctrinal arc as moving from passive defence and left-of-launch tactics in 1944, through reliance on offensive nuclear deterrence and US-supplied systems through the 2010s, to a 2026 coalition in which Europe is, for the first time, co-developing its own interceptor.

She noted a recurring divergence in the European doctrine – Britain’s consistent instinct to rationalise threats through collaboration with larger partners (from the 1985 Strategic Defense Initiative Memorandum of Understanding to the ESSI), against France’s consistent instinct to indigenise (from the 1985 EUREKA programme to its refusal to join ESSI over the MBDA question) – with the 2026 Coalition marking the first time both camps have converged on a single architecture.

Q & A Session

The Director General, Ambassador Sujan R. Chinoy, emphasised that the European Union has already experienced these threats firsthand, advocating for deterrence through both denial and punishment. Addressing arguments that deterrence is dead, Amb. Chinoy stated that deterrence needs to be offensive, concluding that India’s Sudarshan Chakra must be both defensive and offensive. He advised that one must always contextualise threats by assessing their quantity and quality before identifying vulnerable points. He commented that it was interesting to see Germany playing a lead role in the ESSI, given its role with the V1 and V2 rockets in the Second World War against Europe. Amb. Chinoy further outlined two aspects of the EU’s BMD architecture. One, Europe is attempting to unite as a common defence and security alliance by connecting the military ecosystems of its member-states. And two, France’s proclivity to always take its own path continues.

Queries were raised from the floor regarding the overall BMD architecture for countering hypersonic glide vehicles (HGVs), cost-sharing of the ESSI, and a future Indian BMD alliance. The Speaker elaborated on the three space-based capabilities of BMDs and ground-based systems, clarifying that ESSI is not fully operational but is designed to feed into NATO’s Arrow and Patriot systems to ensure sufficient EU interceptor availability.

The Report has been prepared by Mr. Siddhant Hira, Research Analyst, Military Affairs Centre, MP-IDSA.